Bangladesh RMG sector stops labour recruitment

Due to a fall in export orders, Bangladesh RMG exporters have put labour recruitment on hold. The recruitment in the country's readymade garment industry, the largest job providing organised sector, has declined significantly in recent times mainly due to the fall in export orders and the hike in wage rates.

As per BGMEA data, the RMG industry on an average recruits more than 0.5 million employees every year. In the last eight months (July-February) of the fiscal 2013-14, RMG factories recruited nearly 50,000 workers, and the estimated recruitment stood at 4.00 million in the FY 2012-13 and 80 per cent of them were women, mostly coming from the rural areas.

A hike in wage rate along with high power tariff, falling export orders and other issues have compelled owners of the apparel units to put the fresh recruitment of workers on hold. As per industry experts, most RMG units usually expand at least ten per cent of their production capacity every year to match with the growing demand for products from the buyers. But, this year, most of the factories could not even utilise their existing capacity because of the decline in export orders.